Gravity Falls to California, a Sad Departure
by mythulshah
Summary: This is not a fanfic, to be completely honest. It is just an article that describes my experience as I watched the animated Disney show Gravity Falls. Do not confuse this with a review, though it may seem so at certain points. It is a tribute to the show and a way of sharing my emotional journey throughout the show.


Everyone who has seen the ending of the show will know what I mean by the title.

It all began a couple weeks before I wrote this article, when I started watching this random show a friend suggested me to watch, Gravity Falls.

I had seen it before, around the time I was 12. Back then I had DisneyXD on tv and watched the episodes whenever they were on. Anyway, that was the thing with TV and childhood, I never was able to catch all the episodes and watched them in a random order. This time, though, it was different. Being an adult, I devised means to watch the show in its entirety and in the intended order.

I was not sure whether or not I would actually get hooked to the kiddy stuff, generic humor and scientifically unresolvable occurences of the fictitious, animated Disney production, but I decided to give it a go.

When the first episode began, I was completely judging the authenticity of its content and unsurprisingly, I was disappointed. The jokes were not exactly original and the intro was generic. The plot was introduced via a flashback/'it all began when' kinda sitch.

The things that got me through the initial few episodes were the innovative animation, low predictability and an occasional good joke that caught me by surprise. But as I reached the middle of the first season, I realized I was actually enjoying the show and had stopped watching it as a courtesy. The show had slowly made its way through my judgemental barrier and was now nested among my thoughts and emotions. Once a day, I would unconsciously get this urge to start watching an episode and no resistance would be offered by my conscious mind.

When I was watching the 11th episode, it struck me how much the characters had grown on me. Most character traits were picked up from other media, but every character was given the right qualities. Mabel's cuteness and craziness, Dipper's intellect and obsessive curiosity, Stan's obsession with money and business skills, Wendy's laid back coolness and Soos's faithfulness all merged together and warmed my heart. Even the random side characters had something to tell, be it Lazy Susan, the Northwest family, Grenda and Candy or the ultra-crazy/ super-smart Hobo

The main story revolving around the mysterious occurings of Gravity Falls and the journals recording facts about these mysteries is also a magnet for curiosity. Now if I further elaborate on this subject, the readers won't watch the actual show, so I would suggest you to go ahead and see it for yourself.

And further and further I went until the 2nd Season commenced. The atmosphere of the second season was not much different from the first one, despite the slightly predictable twist at the end of the first season. The relationships between the characters had deepened and the pace of the story had increased, but it still retained the charm of the first season, like the use of the word 'gruncle', Waddles the pig and the fact that everyone drank nothing but Pitt-Cola, a peach flavoured soda.

I could never have predicted the turn of events of the second season and that made the show special in my perspective. The crude parts of the story just happened to fall in place and the after effect was somewhat satisfying.

As I approached the end of second season, the concluding season, a sense of dread took over my heart and I reduced the frequency of watching the show in fear of finishing it way too soon.

But in the end I binge watched the last 5 episodes just to get to see what the end looked like. Towards the end stuff got majorly weird yet somehow increasingly interesting. The main story concluded and the climax, the part I actually waited for, began.

(Spoiler Alert: I am going to describe the climax in detail, so refrain from reading hereon if you are planning to watch the show.)

The climax begins with the family sadly tries to revive Stan's memories, but the events take a turn for the good when Stan is able to recall names and stuff. I have no idea how that could happen, because his memories had metaphorically been consumed by blue flames, but I would have hated the writers if they left Stan clueless towards the end, so no complaints there.

Then there was the 13th Birthday party of Mabel and Dipper and everything is absolutely awesome, but there was a voice inside me that chanted "Please don't leave Gravity Falls!" over and over.

I just expected one of the Stans to request the kids, both of them, to stay at Gravity Falls with them, but when Standford asked Stanley to accompany him for oceanic adventures, the chant hopelessly subsided.

And then, the end with snippets of the future was awesome. The tears and hugs didn't exactly bring water in my eyes, but they were enough to dowse me with a tsunami of sadness.( Some of this may be excessively dramatic)

The exchange of caps between Dipper and Wendy, the Stan double hug and the sign switch from Gravity Falls to California made the end tragedic yet original and now that I am thinking back on it while writing this, I realise that I would have considered the ending childish if Dipper and Mabel had actually stayed back at Gravity Falls.

I thoroughly loved the show. It is in my opinion one of the best cartoons. If you choose to disagree with me, then inspired from the great Ducktective, I would like you to QUACK QUACK!


End file.
